The PHP session cleaner cron task in Plesk fails: run-parts: /etc/cron.hourly/plesk-php-cleanuper exited with return code 1

Symptoms

• Plesk Administrator regularly receives email notifications about the failed plesk-php-cleanuper cron task:

  CONFIG_TEXT: Subject: cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily
  Message text: run-parts: /etc/cron.hourly/plesk-php-cleanuper exited with return code 1

• Manual execution of the /etc/cron.hourly/plesk-php-cleanuper task stops after an operation with the /var/lib/php/sessions/ directory:

  # sh -x /etc/cron.hourly/plesk-php-cleanuper
  + [ -e /etc/cron.d/php -a -x /usr/lib/php/sessionclean ]
  + pgrep -f .*/etc/cron.daily/plesk-php-cleanuper$
  + grep -qv 15249
  + renice 19 -p 15249
  + [ -x /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/maxlifetime ]
  + [ -d /var/lib/php/sessions ]

  The exit code of this command is 1:

  # echo $?
  1

Cause

The cron script fails to execute becase /var/lib/php/sessions and /var/lib/php directories are missing on the server:

# ls -la /var/lib/php
ls: cannot access '/var/lib/php': No such file or directory
# ls -la /var/lib/php/sessions
ls: cannot access '/var/lib/php/sessions': No such file or directory

Resolution

1. Connect to the server via SSH.

2. Create missing /var/lib/php and /var/lib/php/sessions directories:

   # mkdir /var/lib/php
   # mkdir /var/lib/php/sessions

3. Set the correct permissions for these directories:

   # chmod 755 /var/lib/php
   # chmod 1733 /var/lib/php/sessions